luck

The older I grow, the more I’ve come to believe that good actions attract good energy and bad actions attract negative energy. Webster’s describes Karma as a Hindu and Buddhist belief in the “force generated by a person’s actions to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person’s next existence.” I’ve completely distorted this religious belief to fit what I’ve noticed so far in my life. For me the good or bad actions that people do seem to have an impact on their destiny. Doing good things, being ethical, brings positive energy and positive outcomes. Doing bad things -lying, stealing, cheating – brings negative energy and bad repercussions. People who lie, cheat or steal always seem to have bad things happen to them and often complain that life is never fair to them.

I remember when I was in my early twenties an aggressive woman neighbour was fighting my father over their backyard property boundary. My father was elderly, he pulled an oxygen tank around with him, and could barely walk from his chair in the living room to the front door. He had trouble getting from the car into the courtroom. The neighbour swore to tell the truth on the witness stand, and then went on to tell a whopper of a lie about my father yelling at her, banging on her door at all times of day, and scaring her. Anyone who had watched my father’s slow walk into the courtroom knew there was no way this frail old man could make it all the way around the block to her front door, let alone yell at her once he got there. He barely had enough breath to answer questions on the witness stand. But she went on and on about how she was afraid to go out of her house. I remember wondering if she’d be struck by lightning for telling such a lie while under oath. She died of a brain tumour 6 months later.

Ever since then I’ve noticed that people who knowingly lie and distort the truth always seem to be physically impacted by the lie, as if their act of lying attracts negative energy that swirls around inside them. It might manifest as a brain tumour, or as a horrible circumstance that happens to them or someone they love.

In 2013 I came out on Mayor Ford’s behaviour and drug induced state at a public event. He and his brother went on the radio the following day and called me a liar, publicly shaming me and distorting the truth. I remember listening to Mayor Ford deny everything that had happened and claim that he never touched drugs. I remember thinking how this huge lie he was telling would eat away at him, and I wondered how long it would take. Within a year he developed the tumour in his stomach that eventually killed him. I’m sure it was not this one lie that caused his cancer but rather think that lies and deceits over time tend to compound inside a person.

My son was telling me today about Stephen Hawking’s idea that there are other dimensions that we can’t see or even begin to comprehend, and I wonder if karma might be explained in this way? I’ve seen its impact too many times to count and I sometimes wonder if it might be reversed? If a liar admits to the truth, would they be releasing the lie and stopping negative energy from building up inside them?

Karma is a very real part of how I understand the world. I’ve always believed that doing good attracts good energy, so I try in my own way to do things that will make the world better. When I look at my husband sleeping in the bed beside me and think of our two boys, I know I must always try to do the right thing. I can’t turn a blind eye and walk away from something when I know that my actions can make the world a little better for someone else. Life has taught me to hang onto the truth, to value it, and never compromise it, because the world has a very harsh way of dealing with liars.

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